The Norfolk Ruling: The Strongest Case Against Us, Read Honestly

We tell you when the record cuts our way. Honesty requires telling you when it doesn’t. In January, a federal judge upheld the constitutionality of Flock cameras in Norfolk, Virginia. If you speak at a commission meeting, someone may cite that case at you. Here is exactly what it held — and what it didn’t.

What happened

In October 2024, Norfolk resident Lee Schmidt and Portsmouth resident Crystal Arrington, represented by the Institute for Justice, sued Norfolk over its network of roughly 170 Flock cameras, arguing that photographing and logging every driver’s movements without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment. The city moved to dismiss; in February 2025 Chief Judge Mark Davis refused and let the case proceed. Then, on January 27, 2026, the same judge ruled for the city on the merits: Norfolk’s network, as it currently operates, is not an unconstitutional search.

The honest reading

The court’s reasoning matters more than its result. Judge Davis found that Norfolk’s cameras — with 30-day retention and gaps in coverage — do not yet capture “the whole of a person’s movements” the way the cell-phone tracking in Carpenter did. And he warned, in the opinion itself, that the answer could change as the network grows and the technology advances. That is not an endorsement. It is a measuring stick: the denser the network, the longer the retention, the more connected the systems — the closer it moves to unconstitutional. New Hanover County’s contract wires its cameras into a nationwide lookup network, adds live-video Condors, and integrates with Fusus. Every expansion the Sheriff makes is a step toward the line the judge drew.

Why it isn’t over — and why it lands here

Schmidt and Arrington are appealing to the Fourth Circuit — the federal appeals court whose rulings bind North Carolina. Whatever the Fourth Circuit decides about Flock cameras will be the law of our state’s federal courts. And in Chatrie v. United States, the Supreme Court held that obtaining phone location data — even from a third-party company — is a Fourth Amendment search. The constitutional ground under mass location tracking is shifting, fast.

But here is the part that matters for August 17: no court ordered these cameras installed, and no court is needed to remove them. Norfolk’s drivers had to sue. Wilmington’s don’t — our commissioners can cancel the contract at any time, without cause. The Constitution sets the floor. The county gets to choose better than the floor. Tell them to.